It is late autumn in Central Park.
James Stevenson's ink and wash drawing shows two unshaven men on a park bench, no doubt experiencing hard times, sharing a pithy observation about... something. But what? For all practical purposes the caption is lost, leaving us with an incomplete gag. Heritage Auctions identifies this as a published
New Yorker cartoon, and indeed it looks a bit familiar, but even that information leaves hundreds of Stevenson cartoons to sort through if one wishes to find it.
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James Stevenson, The New Yorker,
Heritage Auctions, December 30, 2012
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I gave the archives a cursory glance and this is the nearest thing I could find. The published 1981 drawing below is clearly different, but the situation is quite similar. So these could either be two distinct cartoons with similar staging, or else alternative versions of the same cartoon. The speaker is smirking in the Heritage cartoon, and looking aghast in
The New Yorker's 1981
cartoon. I think the same caption could work either way, but with a quite different nuance, of course.
The Heritage drawing would convey a bit of smug self-satisfaction at thumbing one's nose at the world, and the 1981 cartoon gives more of a sense of belated awareness of just what personal loss one's ill-considered, defiant actions can lead to.
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James Stevenson, "One day, I decided to hell with it--across the board."
The New Yorker, June 22, 1981, page 46
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James Stevenson, "One day, I decided to hell with it--across the board."
The New Yorker, June 22, 1981, page 46 |
I'm the first to admit that I blog from a state of ignorance. If you know something that I don't, feel free to share it.
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James Stevenson
[Possible Caption: "One day, I decided to hell with it--across the board."]
The New Yorker,
Heritage Auctions, December 30, 2012
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July 13, 2014 Update: Here is another cartoon with a pair of park bums by James Stevenson, who returned to this theme several times. On May 24, 1960, Newbold Morris succeeded long-time Parks Commissioner Robert Moses, the City's "master builder" who held the post for the previous 26 years. This cartoon seems much earlier than the Heritage Auctions art.
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James Stevenson,
"I fail to see any difference between the administration of Robert Moses and the administration of Newbold Morris."
The New Yorker, September 10, 1960, page 37 |
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James Stevenson,
"I fail to see any difference between the administration of Robert Moses and the administration of Newbold Morris."
The New Yorker, September 10, 1960, page 37 |
December 9, 2019 Update: Well, I finally came across the Stevenson cartoon quite by accident in the New Yorker issue of October 7, 1967. In retrospect I should have been able to guess the caption.
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"All in all, it was a stimulating summer. Herb Alpert was perhaps a bit commercial, Streisand was superb, the 'Titus Andronicus' was sensitively mounted, and I find it difficult to fault the Philharmonic."
James Stevenson
The New Yorker,, October 7, 1967, page 42
Heritage Auctions, December 30, 2012
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Cartoons by James Stevenson and Lee Lorenz
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There's quite a bit of truth to this cartoon. In New York, everyone has an opinion on the arts. All these performances took place in Central Park over the summer season of 1967. Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass performed in the bandshell of Central Park in August in a performance somewhat marred by rain. In June Barbara Streisand performed a live concert that was to become "A Happening in Central Park," her first live album. "Titus Andronicus" had just been presented in August at the Delacorte Theatre as free Shakespeare in the Park. On August 1, the New York Philharmonic was lead by Seiji Ozawa in the Sheep Meadow.
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Billboard, September 9, 1967
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